Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges he orchestrated the biggest fraud in Wall Street history and was ordered to jail to await a sentence that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. In an emotional court hearing in front of scores of investors he swindled, the former Nasdaq stock market chairman spent 10 minutes describing a long-running Ponzi scheme he knew from the beginning was criminal and wrong but hoped would end quickly. “I am painfully aware that I have deeply hurt many, many people,” including family, friends and associates, said the gray-haired, grim-faced Madoff, 70, speaking of his crime for the first time publicly before US Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan federal court. “When I began my Ponzi scheme I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from the scheme,” said Madoff, who wore a gray suit but none of the rings and jewelry that long were a signature of his style. He said that shutting down the scheme, in which early investors are paid with the money of new clients, proved impossible and he soon came to realize “that my arrest and this day would inevitably come.” Madoff was head of a family-run business in which his brother, Peter, and sons Mark and Andrew were executives in the brokerage arm of his firm. Neither they nor his wife of nearly 50 years, Ruth Madoff, were in court.
